Preliminary Treaty of Paris is signed on November 30, 1782
Preliminary Treaty of Paris is signed: On this day in history, November 30, 1782, the preliminary Treaty of Paris is signed, bringing the hostilities of the American Revolution to a close. The British government became more disposed to achieving peace with the Americans after the surrender of General Charles Lord Cornwallis and the loss of several of its possessions to France and Spain.
The United States was prevented from dealing directly with Great Britain due to its alliance with France, having promised that it would not negotiate with Britain without them. Nonetheless, messages were exchanged between Ben Franklin in Paris and Prime Minister, Lord Shelburne's peace commissioner in Paris, Richard Oswald, seeking common ground on which a preliminary peace could be formed.
The United States demanded full recognition by Britain as a sovereign nation, removal of British troops from its territory and fishing rights off Newfoundland. At first, Britain wanted the United States to remain as British possessions, but with greater autonomy. This was rejected by Ben Franklin, who wanted all of Canada for the United States as part of the deal. Britain rejected this proposal.
The negotiations continued in secret and John Jay and John Adams joined Ben Franklin. Due to the exposure of some secret meetings between Britain and France and to his distrust of the French, John Jay, began negotiating directly with the British, against the wishes of Franklin and unbeknownst to France. Formal talks began in September and the remaining difficulties were ironed out over the next two months.
Two days after America's 4th peace commissioner, Henry Laurens, arrived, a preliminary agreement was signed on November 30, 1782, which recognized the United States and established its boundaries, roughly being from the Mississippi to the Atlantic and from the Great Lakes to Florida. The preliminary Treaty of Paris also granted the United States the right to fish off Newfoundland and granted both Britain and the United States the right to use the Mississippi River.
Congress was to “earnestly recommend” to the states that they refund any property taken from Loyalists during the war and creditors on both sides were given full rights to recover all debts. Prisoners were to be released on both sides and all American property was to be left undamaged by British troops when they left.
The preliminary Treaty of Paris was ratified by Parliament on January 20, 1783 and by Congress on April 15. A ceasefire was declared by Britain on February 4 and by America on April 11th. The final official Treaty of Paris was signed by the commissioners on September 3, 1783, ratified by Congress on January 14, 1784 and by Great Britain on April 9, 1784. The ratified documents were exchanged once and for all in Paris on May 12, 1784, bringing the American Revolution to an end.
USSR attacks Finland: On this day in 1939, the Red Army crosses the Soviet-Finnish border with 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. Helsinki was bombed, and 61 Finns were killed in an air raid that steeled the Finns for resistance, not capitulation.
The overwhelming forces arrayed against Finland convinced most Western nations, as well as the Soviets themselves, that the invasion of Finland would be a cakewalk. The Soviet soldiers even wore summer uniforms, despite the onset of the Scandinavian winter; it was simply assumed that no outdoor activity, such as fighting, would be taking place. But the Helsinki raid had produced many casualties-and many photographs, including those of mothers holding dead babies, and preteen girls crippled by the bombing. Those photos were hung up everywhere to spur on Finn resistance. Although that resistance consisted of only small numbers of trained soldiers-on skis and bicycles!–fighting it out in the forests, and partisans throwing Molotov cocktails into the turrets of Soviet tanks, the refusal to submit made headlines around the world.
President Roosevelt quickly extended $10 million in credit to Finland, while also noting that the Finns were the only people to pay back their World War I war debt to the United States in full. But by the time the Soviets had a chance to regroup, and send in massive reinforcements, the Finnish resistance was spent. By March 1940, negotiations with the Soviets began, and Finland soon lost the Karelian Isthmus, the land bridge that gave access to Leningrad, which the Soviets wanted to control.
A mother in New York City is looking for answers after her 4-year-old daughter brought home crack cocaine from preschool.
Sabrina Straker said her daughter, Serenity, showed her some tiny plastic containers that she claimed were “teeth”, given to her by a boy at school.
Straker said she thought the situation was strange.
“I told her, ‘He needs to put that under his pillow so the tooth fairy will come”, the mother told Inside Edition. “I was examining it, and she brings me more.”
Not sure what was in the vials, Straker took them to a local precinct, only to be shocked when a narcotics detective told her the vials contained crack cocaine, she told NBC New York.
Straker was even more shocked with what happened next. Her daughter, who had been acting hyper already, told the officer and her mom that the rocks tasted terrible.
Serenity then put one of the pieces of crack in her mouth, which sent her even more over the edge, according to her mother.
The girl was rushed to the hospital, where she tested positive for crack cocaine, Straker said.
Straker’s daughter has recovered from the incident, but hasn’t returned to the day care, Straker said.
“I’m frustrated, I’m annoyed, I’m disappointed”, she said.
The family took the little girl to an emergency room, where she tested positive for crack cocaine.
“She just couldn’t help herself”, Sabrina Straker told Inside Edition. “She couldn’t stop talking. Even at the hospital, she was still up and going nonstop like the Energizer Bunny.”
Since Serenity could have died from a drug overdose, Straker has removed her daughter as a student and is demanding the school be shut down.
Yvette Joseph, the director at the Lil Inventors Child Care in the Bronx, told the New York Daily News that someone threw the drugs over the fence and that’s how it fell into the hands of one of the children.
“We’ve been in the neighborhood for over 40 years, and nothing like this has ever happened”, Joseph said. “Unfortunately, we live in a high-risk neighborhood, and it’s a neighborhood that, you know ... you know what goes on in neighborhoods that are high-risk.”
“No one was watching the children”, she told WPIX TV. “There are 15 kids in the room with two teachers and two aides, where were they when this was going on?”
The New York Police Department is investigating the incident, according to numerous media reports.
Mr. Answer Man Please Tell Us: Does the Sun Rotate Like the Earth?
Does the Sun Rotate Like the Earth? The Sun does rotate, but it does not rotate like the Earth.
That's because, despite its fluid center and atmosphere, the Earth rotates (more or less) like a rigid body, all of it rotating at (again: more or less) the same speed. One day is 24 hours, no matter where on - or in - the Earth you are.
The Sun, however, is manifestly not a rigid body. It is a gigantic ball of superheated plasma, which means that different parts of the sun rotate at different rates.
The equator of the Sun completes a full rotation once every 24.5 days, while the poles take almost 38 days to complete a rotation.
It can be a little bit difficult to spot with the naked eye, but you can just about appreciate the difference in speeds of the sunspots in this video:
Rotating Sun from NASA
Modern helioseismology has also provided significant evidence that the rate of rotation inside the Sun also varies hugely - so the surface can rotate up to 40 percent faster than the material halfway between the core and the surface.
Hence, the sun does rotate, but nothing like the Earth.
Bandit: An aircraft which has been positively identified as hostile.
Bar fine: Fee paid to the manager ("mamasan") of a bar (generally adjacent to the former Naval Base Subic, former Naval Air Station Cubi Point, or former Clark Air Base in the Philippines) for letting a "hostess" take the night off. If a longer term “relationship” is desired by both parties, the “bar fine” can be paid in advance as “steady papers”. Sex is universally expected, although technically not required. The hostess will expect some entertainment (dancing, dinner, etc.).
Barely Trainable: Derogatory term for a Boiler Technician (BT).
Barney Clark: A slider topped with a fried egg. Also called a “One-Eyed Jack”. Named, due to its apparent high cholesterol content, for Mr. Barney Clark, who in 1982 received a “Jarvik” artificial heart.
Barricade, Barrier: The huge nylon net strung across the landing area of a carrier to arrest the landing of an aircraft with damaged gear or a damaged tailhook.
Battle Pin:Tie clasp or Tie tack; until the start of World War II a metal bar worn on shirt collar.
Battle Sight Zero or BZO:Calibrated settings on a gunsight that contribute to accuracy; used as default before adjusting windage or elevation; also used as verb when triangulating a BZO.
Naval Aviation Squadron Nicknames
Patrol Squadron Nine (VP-9) - nicknamed the “Golden Eagles” United States Navy - Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, Oak Harbor, Washington - Established March, 15 1951
Where Did That Saying Come From?
“Fly by the seat of your pants:” Meaning: Decide a course of action as you go along, using your own initiative and perceptions rather than a predetermined plan or mechanical aids.
History: This is early aviation parlance. Aircraft initially had few navigation aids and flying was accomplished by means of the pilot's judgment. The term emerged in the 1930s and was first widely used in reports of Douglas Corrigan's flight from the USA to Ireland in 1938.
That flight was reported in many U.S. newspapers of the day, including this piece, titled 'Corrigan Flies By The Seat Of His Pants', in The Edwardsville Intelligencer, 19th July 1938:
“Douglas Corrigan was described as an aviator 'who flies by the seat of his pants' today by a mechanic who helped him rejuvinate the plane which airport men have now nicknamed the 'Spirit of $69.90'. The old flying expression of 'flies by the seat of his trousers' was explained by Larry Conner, means going aloft without instruments, radio or other such luxuries.”
Two days before this report Corrigan had submitted a flight plan to fly from Brooklyn to California. He had previously had a plan for a trans-Atlantic flight rejected (presumably on the grounds that the 'Spirit of $69.60 wasn't considered up to the job). His subsequent 29 hour flight ended in Dublin, Ireland. He claimed that his compasses had failed. He didn't openly admit it but it was widely assumed that he had ignored the rejection of his flight plan and deliberately flown east rather than west. He was thereafter known as 'Wrong Way Corrigan' and starred as himself in the 1938 movie The Flying Irishman.
The 'old flying expression' quoted above (although it can't have been very old in 1938) that refers to trousers rather than pants does suggest that the phrase was originally British and crossed the Atlantic (the right way) prior to becoming 'flies by the seat of one's pants'.
In a toxic urban landscape of the future, what strange (and still oddly familiar) animals might have evolved to survive there?
A new book, “Beyond the Sixth Extinction: A Post-Apocalyptic Pop-Up” (Candlewick Press) by Shawn Sheehy, artfully imagines the grotesque creatures that could live in a possible future - one reshaped by disasters so destructive that 75 to 80 percent of life on Earth went extinct.
How odd would this world's inhabitants be? Imagine a giant, flightless pigeon that carries its young in pouches under its wings, a freshwater turtle with a shell fortified by heavy metals, and a cockroach as big as your head. [Real or Fake? 8 Bizarre Hybrid Animals]
Set in the year 4847, “Beyond the Sixth Extinction” is a bestiary representing inhabitants of nightmarish ecosystems of the future, and Sheehy uses intricately crafted 3D paper pop-ups to introduce a host of highly unusual animals. At first glance, they somewhat resemble wildlife alive today. However, the newly imagined species sport highly unusual adaptations that help them survive in harsh and extreme environments.
Over the past 500 million years, Earth has undergone five mass extinctions that eradicated millions of species. Each event is thought to have wiped out between 50 and 95 percent of all life on the planet, and experts have warned for years that we are on the verge of a sixth mass extinction — facing the loss of at least 75 percent of species alive today in a relatively short period of geologic time.
But unlike earlier extinction events caused by massive volcanic eruptions or collisions with an enormous asteroid or comet, the cause of the next mass extinction will be destructive human activity.
In “Beyond the Sixth Extinction”, eight imagined species of the future are the end product of thousands of years of evolution after a human-driven global-extinction event. Over millennia, they adapted to withstand high levels of harmful radiation, and they are capable of absorbing nutrients from whatever is available, even objects that their ancestors would have found inedible, Sheehy explained.
And the creatures are bizarre. Any person who lives in a city is likely very familiar with cockroaches. But the book's “rex roach” is about the size of a puppy, bigger than any insect that ever lived. Roaches are known to be resistant to the negative effects of harmful radiation, and over time the rex roach has evolved even greater protection, according to the book. An insect's body size is typically limited by how much oxygen it can circulate through its exoskeleton. But the rex roach has a stretchy shell that allows it to expand and contract its body like a bellows, taking in more oxygen and enabling them to grow bigger than insects today.
Another oddball creature in the book, the "clam fungus" clusters atop landfills and breathes methane. Meanwhile, a crustacean called the "peteybug" can roll itself up like a woodlouse and feeds on discarded plastic. This post-apocalyptic world would also be inhabited by the “mudmop”, a bottom-dwelling fish with a face full of tentacles, and the "rotrap," a ratlike animal that lives its adult life permanently attached to walls in flooded nuclear reaction chambers.
Though the world where these fanciful species reside seems bleak, the ability of certain forms of life to evolve and survive even under grim conditions may offer readers a ray of hope, Sheehy said.
“Ultimately, this is a resilient system. It's demonstrated resilience for billions of years. So even if we hit this 75 to 80 percent species loss, once the species that's causing all of the issues gets out of the way, it's going to bounce back. It's going to recover and resume diversity and richness”, he said.
“A Day in the Life” - The Beatles
Album: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Released 1967
A 41-piece orchestra played on this song. The musicians were told to attend the session dressed formally. When they got there, they were presented with party novelties (false noses, party hats, gorilla-paw glove) to wear, which made it clear this was not going to be a typical session. The orchestra was conducted by Paul McCartney, who told them to start with the lowest note of their instruments and gradually play to the highest.
This was recorded in three sessions: First the basic track, then the orchestra, then the last note was dubbed in.
The beginning of this song was based on two stories John Lennon read in the Daily Mail newspaper: Guinness heir Tara Browne dying when he smashed his lotus into a parked van, and an article in the UK Daily Express in early 1967 which told of how the Blackburn Roads Surveyor had counted 4000 holes in the roads of Blackburn and commented that the volume of material needed to fill them in was enough to fill the Albert Hall. Lennon took some liberties with the Tara Browne story - he changed it so he “Blew his mind out in the car.”
Regarding the article about Tara Browne, John Lennon stated: “I didn't copy the accident. Tara didn't blow his mind out. But it was in my mind when I was writing that verse.” At the time, Paul didn't realize the reference was to Tara. He thought it was about a “stoned politician”. The article regarding the “4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire” was taken from the UK Daily Express, January 17, 1967 in a column called “Far And Near”.
John's friend Terry Doran was the one who completed John's line, “Now they know how many holes it takes to fill...” Terry told him “fill the Albert Hall, John.”
McCartney contributed the line “I'd love to turn you on.” This was a drug reference, but the BBC banned it because of another section, which they assumed was about marijuana:
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream
The ban was finally lifted when author David Storey picked it as one of his Desert Island Discs.
Speaking with GQ in 2018, Paul McCartney explained this song's origin story:
“'A Day In The Life' was a song that John had started. He had the first verse, and this often happened: one of us would have a little bit of an idea and instead of sitting down and sweating it, we'd just bring it to the other one and kind of finish it together, because you could ping-pong - you'd get an idea. So he had the first verse: 'I read the news today oh boy,' and we sat in my music room in London and just started playing around with it, got a second verse, and then we got to what was going to lead into the middle. We kind of looked at each other and knew we were being a little bit edgy where we 'I'd love to turn you on.' We knew that would have an effect.”
“It worked. And then we put on another section I had: 'Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.' Then we finished the song up and did a big sort of epic recording of it with a big full orchestra and everything. And then did that crescendo thing in the middle of it with the orchestra, which was an idea I'd had because I'd been talking to people and reading about avant-garde music, tonal stuff and crazy ideas. I came up with this idea. I said to the orchestra, 'You should start, all of you.' And they sat all looking at me puzzled. We've got a real symphony orchestra in London who are used to playing Beethoven, and here's me, this crazy guy out of a group and I'm saying, 'Everyone start on the lowest note your instrument can play and work your way up to the highest at your own pace.'”
“That was too puzzling for them, and orchestras don't like that kind of thing. They like it written down and they like to know exactly what they're supposed to do. So George Martin, the producer, said to the people, 'You should leave this note and this point in the song, and then you should go to this note and this note,' and he left the random thing, so that's why it sounds like a chaotic sort of swirl. That was an idea based on the avant-garde stuff I was into at the time.”
The final chord was produced by all four Beatles and George Martin banging on three pianos simultaneously. As the sound diminished, the engineer boosted to faders. The resulting note lasts 42 seconds; the studio air conditioners can be heard toward the end as the faders were pushed to the limit to record it.
The rising orchestra-glissando and the thundering sound are reminiscent of “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla” from Richard Wagner's opera “Das Rheingold”, where after the rising glissando, Thor beats with his hammer. George Martin said in his 1979 book “All You Need is Ears” that the glissando was Lennon's idea. After Lennon's death, Martin seems to have changed his mind. In his 1995 book “Summer of Love: The Making of Sgt. Pepper”, he states that the rising orchestra-glissando was McCartney's idea.
This being the last song on the album, The Beatles found an interesting way to close it out. After the final note, Lennon had producer George Martin dub in a high pitched tone, which most humans can't hear, but drives dogs crazy. This was followed by a loop of incomprehensible studio noise, along with Paul McCartney saying, “Never could see any other way”, all spliced together. It was put there so vinyl copies would play this continuously in the run-out groove, sounding like something went horribly wrong with the record. Another good reason to own vinyl.
“John's voice - which he hated - was the kind of thing that would send shivers down your spine. If you hear those opening chords with the guitar and piano, and then his voice comes in, 'I heard the news today, oh boy' It's just so evocative of that time. He always played his songs to me on the guitar and I would sit on a stool as he strummed. The orchestral section was Paul's idea. We put two pieces of songs together that weren't connected in any way. Then we had that 24-bars-of-nothing in between. I had to write a score, but in the climax, I gave each instrument different little waypoints at each bar, so they would know roughly where they should be when they were sliding up. Just so they didn't reach the climax too quickly. With 'A Day In The Life,' I wondered whether we were losing our audience and I was scared. But I stopped being scared when I played it to the head of Capitol Records in America and he was gob smacked. He said, That's fantastic. And of course, it was.”
